Evaluation of a multicomponent appearance-based sun-protective intervention for young women: uncovering the mechanisms of program efficacy.

An appearance-based sun-protection intervention program was developed, implemented, and evaluated in a sample of 211 Caucasian women (ages 18-25) randomly assigned to the sun-protection program or to a stress management (control) program. The sun-protection program incorporated a novel construct of image norms of aspirational peers (i.e., female media figures, fashion models) approving paleness. The authors targeted these image norms as well as the advantages of tanning, health beliefs about photoaging and skin cancer, and self-efficacy for sun protection. The intervention produced significant differences across conditions favoring sun protection on all constructs but severity of skin cancer and barriers to sun protection. At follow-up, treatment participants exceeded controls both in intention to sun protect and sun-protective behavior and reported lower intention to sunbathe and fewer hours of sunbathing. A mediational model of intervention outcomes revealed distinct mediators for sun protection versus sunbathing.     

Transition to motherhood: A longitudinal study

A prospective longitudinal study assessed the development of the mother-child relationship within the context of other important aspects of transition to parenthood. In the prenatal phase, 238 women who were 8 months pregnant with their first child completed a set of questionnaires. At 1 month post-partum, 165 of these women completed a second set of questionnaires, and a subset of 86 were observed for 1 hour at home with their infants. When their child was 2 years old, 62 of the 86 mothers completed questionnaires and were observed in interaction with their toddler in the laboratory. The several hundred individual variables were reduced to internally consistent composite variables, 5 in the prenatal phase, 7 postpartum, and 14 in the toddler phase. Preliminary analyses reported in this paper assessed the structure of relationships among the composite variables within each phase (Pearson correlations) and whether there was significant prediction from one dimension to another across the phases, beyond stability in the predicted dimension (multiple regressions). Causal modeling analyses are still in progress. The results indicate that the development of maternal attachment is a gradual process and that feelings of attachment are related to a number of other measures of women's psychological well-being. Parenting confidence was found to play a central role in adaptation to motherhood within each phase, as well as from the prenatal to postpartum and postpartum to toddler phases.     

Christianity,Family, Students,and COVID-19

Journal of Religion and Health - Four substantial topics are explored in this issue of the Journal of Religion and Health, namely: (1) Christianity, (2) family and faith dynamics, (3) the spiritual...     

Limb Dominance and Its Effects on the Benefits of Intralimb Transfer of Learning: A Visuomotor Aiming Task

Research has attempted to address what characteristics benefit from transfer of learning; however, it is still unclear which characteristics are effector dependent or independent. Furthermore, it is not clear if intralimb transfer shows, similarly to interlimb transfer, an asymmetry of benefits between the upper limbs. The purpose of the current study is to examine if effector independence effects emerge, as observed in interlimb transfer studies, when transfer to new effector group within the same limb occurs, and whether the pattern of intralimb transfer benefits differ between the limbs. Our results suggest that a visuomotor task transfers within both limbs, even though the transfer benefits within the limbs seem to differ. This was supported by more transfer occurring in the dominant limb than the nondominant limb. Potential control mechanisms used for intralimb transfer are discussed.     

Auditory discrimination learning: Prototype storage and distinctive features detection mechanisms

The relative contributions of prototype storage and distinctive features detection mechanisms hypothesized to be operating in successive discrimination learning were assessed by the extent of negative transfer between auditory discrimination tasks. The results indicated that both mechanisms were involved, but that prototype storage was the dominant process. This outcome is compared with previous research on tactual and visual discrimination learning. Experimental variables are suggested that might control which mechanism predominates.     

Influence of acoustic context on sound localization: An auditory Roelofs effect

The Roelofs effect is a visual direction illusion: if a large rectangular frame is seen offset from the straight-ahead direction, a small target presented simultaneously is mislocalized in the opposite direction. To investigate whether a similar context illusion might affect auditory localization, we presented a frame of 6 speakers driven with a 300-Hz square wave, 30° left or right of center. The target was a speaker driven with the same waveform, with the two sources in random phase relationship. The target was mislocalized in a direction opposite the frame, an auditory Roelofs effect. A second experiment, using dissimilar sounds for frame and target, yielded no frame-dependent mislocalizations. The effect appeared both in verbal position estimation, a measure of cognitive localization, and in open-loop pointing, a measure of localization in a sensorimotor system. We conclude that audition possesses only one representation of space, in contrast to the two (cognitive and sensorimotor) of vision. The auditory representation corresponds most closely to vision's cognitive system.